The Blog of an Artistic Space Nerd @the-astro-ace - Tumblr Blog

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starlightxraven

Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry.

appalachian-werewolf

"Google AI Overview court loss in Germany could spell doom for AI search industry."

It fucking better.

mrsjdavis

Like to charge, reblog to cast?

rudamaruda520

me as a writer

maimonideznuts

I just saw a short where this comedian Red Richardson (don't know anything about his comedy or politics otherwise, I've never seen him before) touched on something I have said many times...

"in the age of no body shaming, there is still one thing you're allowed to body shame apparently, and that is men with small dicks. Greta Thunberg was arguing on Twitter with a guy called Andrew Tate, who is on house arrest in Romania, for sex trafficking. Do you know what she said? 'you have small dick energy'. She could have said 'Andrew, you're on house arrest, in Romania, for sex trafficking' but apparently on the list of crimes that rates below having a small dick."

Small dick jokes have always been body shaming, sexist and intersexist. They shouldn't be tolerated

strive-to-be-human

I get into fights with people about this all the time! They're like "This isn't body shaming!" which is wild because the penis is a body part and you're asserting the size and shape of it is shameful.

Then they're all like, "Well, no, I'M not saying that it is. I'm using THEIR MINDSET to insult them." Babe, you are using the notion that the shape of someone's body makes them a bad person. That's body shaming. Whether it originates with them or with you, you are using the tool of the oppressor. The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

kiisaes

everyone eat more vegetables NOW!!! and mention the last vegetable you ate in the tags so we're all on the buddy system. I'll start: bok choy

#Carrots lol

batsandboba

do not start gambling. go outside and locate a bug. now post it on inaturalist. bam. nature's gacha game

preserving-tiktok

taraljc

This is an awesome use of what is probably a master's degree if not a doctorate and I am 100% thrilled that she shared it even though it was embarrassing and she squeaked.

liminalbeauty

Thank you, adorable scientist, for making people's lives better.

punchspeedchunk

As an Australian, THIS WOMAN IS A FUCKING GODSEND.

notasapleasure

this is Hannah Fry, Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and president of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications.

anarchopuppy

sometimes being a fan of something means not wanting them to make any more of it

crtter

”How come you’ve never seen the Amazon rainforest if you’re from Brazil?” big country

crtter

Here, this should make it clearer:

crtter

Wait, hold on, I can illustrate it in a funnier way

crtter

There’s around one and a half Frances between me and the Amazon rainforest.

crtter

I had no idea “coach” could also mean “bus” until like, a second ago and I stared at your reply in disbelief for a good minute because I thought you were telling me to do the trip in a horse-drawn carriage. I was like “Coach?! Like Cinderella?! Where would I even get- that HAS to be slower than a car!”

depsidase

bovid-beauty

The rule could have heavy impacts towards trans people across society.

Last week, the Trump administration quietly released a sweeping new federal rule that would use funding threats to force institutions across the country to reject transgender people. The 400-page proposed regulation would codify the administration's anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward "gender ideology"

The proposed rule, formally titled "Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance," rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a "pre-issuance review" conducted by a political appointee—not a career expert or peer reviewer—to ensure it is "consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest." The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for "denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic." [...] An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist—through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes—could be deemed to "deny the sex binary" or to “support the notion that sex is mutable” and have its federal funding blocked.

Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation—hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed promoting the belief that "sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic."

junequeer

THIS IS OPEN TO COMMENT UNTIL JULY 13, 2026

featherandstorm

This is all very bad and horrible, but I want to be clear that it’s worse and more sweeping than just eliminating trans research.

This torches everything. And I do mean everything.

A very abbreviated list of its ramifications include (but are not limited to):

ending funding for ALL DEI related initiatives

allowing the government to terminate grants at any point for any reason

preventing researchers from publishing, going to conferences, and being part of academic societies

requiring that topics must support the president’s agenda.

What this means, and if anything I’m under selling it, is the death of science and research in America. It allows the government to restrict any topic they please at a whims notice, putting officials who have no background in the topic in charge of deciding funding continuity. It controls what gets researched and if/how researchers are allowed to share their discoveries. There are no books to burn if the government never allows them to be written. This is fascism plain and simple.

Please, if you only ever write one public comment, this is the one to do.

genderkoolaid

Bringing back this guide to writing an effective public comment. This gives you the basics you need to know, what you need to include, a basic outline you can follow, etc.

Public comments are not a vote, it is a chance for you to say "here is an issue with this law I think you need to address" and provide justification for legal challenges if it goes forward:

"Comments raise the bar that agencies have to meet when making a rule; “if an agency fails to adequately respond to significant, relevant comments in a final rule, members of the public may seek to challenge the rule in court on that basis and claim it could be struck down.ˮ"

But also, if possible, don't stop at writing a comment. Don't stop at calling your representatives. You should ideally be talking to people in your community about this and organizing resistance on-the-ground; there is a good chance people are already doing that even if you aren't hearing about it.

cherrispryte

Some added 101-level context from someone (me) who’s worked in federal grantmaking for 20 years and is literally certified on this document - this is a document that governs all federal grantmaking. It’s been around for over a decade and is a mega-document that combine multiple previous smaller documents that have been around for ages. It is updated every few years and generally the updates are minor - a notable change in the previous update was raising the small procurement threshold from $10,000 to $15,000 for example. Deeply dry boring minutiae that no one outside of federal grantmakers need concern themselves with. It was also federal GUIDELINES, which means there was flexibility.

This year’s is different. They are now federal REQUIREMENTS, which means there’s no flexibility. As was said previously, the 400 pages are not singularly devoted to being absolute shitheads to trans people. Theres a lot of stuff in there, some of which is the standard dry boring grants stuff, some of which is the horrible ideological warfare outlined above.

This document is issued by the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently lead by fucking Russell Vought, the principal architect of Project 2025. This is how they’re going to implement all the horrible shit in there that wasn’t covered by Executive Order. Russell Vought is actively coming for my job, my marriage, and my kid, and most of my friends lost their jobs last year because of him. He is the fucking arch villain behind the heinous shit the current regime is doing.

So yes, please comment. You don’t have to read all 400 pages before doing so, it’s dry and dense as fuck, but I thought this information might be helpful. Also, while there is a public comment period, this isn’t voted on by Congress. The OMB just fucking issues it. Pressuring your elected officials into publicly saying “hey what the fuck are you doing here” is good, though.

mikkeneko

Please note the comment period is open through JULY 13th, not JUNE 13th. I saw a lot of relogs yesterday saying "last day!" and I just want to say it is very much not too late.

bruzum

lutheban

"i am your favorite teacher's favorite teacher😎" - Mark on his comment section probably just the image:

butchscientist

you will never catch me complaining about an actress on a tv show having an imperfectly concealed pregnancy or a character going on a sudden trip somewhere while her actress is on maternity leave. so many actresses (and women working in any other field) are fired, punished and pressured into making reproductive decisions for their employers' convenience & if i have to try a bit harder to suspend my disbelief then that's absolutely what i'm going to do if it means people are getting to exercise reproductive & bodily autonomy without punishment

confusedlamp

My favorite writing of this was how Star Trek DS9 handled Nana Visitor's pregnancy. It felt out of character for her character (Kira Nerys) to get pregnant and it's the semi-utopian future, so presumably birth control works quite well and abortions are easily available. Solution: another female character gets pregnant, is injured in an emergency situation, and Kira agrees to act as surrogate. They effectively wrote this entire story line well enough, with implications for the dynamics between Kira and the biological parents, that I didn't realize until later that the actress was actually pregnant. I thought it was just an interesting plot line.